Beijing Xiaomi Mobile Software Co., a Xiaomi company, has just published a more than curious patent: A peeping detection system, an extra contribution to facial recognition systems. Beyond curiosity, the idea is interesting, since it comes from the hand of a facial recognition system capable of analyzing when there is more than one person in the scene and if their eyes are pointing at the screen.
We will explain how it works, the hardware behind this patent, and the main purpose of including this function in a device.
Xiaomi’s anti-peeping technology
Xiaomi has made official a new patent under publication number CN112492103A, called (after translation from Chinese) ‘Anti-Myron phone method, device and storage medium’. The name says enough, but the technology behind this patent is curious.
The patent reports on a sensor capable of detecting intruders looking at the screen, as long as they are within a certain range.
It is a sensor that works in real-time to detect at least one face that appears within a predetermined range. That is, in addition to the face of the person who is already looking at the mobile (something that is already detected by current phones), there is a specific sensor that detects the face of people who may be looking at our screen.
The main objective is to prevent spying on the user to safeguard their privacy, preventing other people from being able to see confidential content. There are no details about the integration of the sensor, but to work properly it should be integrated into a system similar to Apple’s Face ID, which Xiaomi already tried to emulate with the Mi 8.
As we always warn patents, patents are patents, as they only show the interest of a company is working on the technology. There are no details about the arrival of this sensor to new devices of the company.
